Chapter 72: The Ripple Effect

Words : 1577 Updated : Sep 12th, 2025

Chapter 72: The Ripple Effect Elder Iris POV I caught Sarah Morrison trying to burn her mate mark with a red-hot stick. "Stop!" I shouted, running across my cabin to grab the iron from her shaking hands. The smell of burning flesh hit my nose, and I saw the angry red cut on her wrist where she’d already started. "Let me finish!" Sarah cried, fighting against my grip. "If it can happen to Lily and Caleb, it can happen to any of us!" This was the third mated wolf I’d found this week trying to destroy their own bond. The fear was spreading through Silver Peak like wildfire, and I was running out of ways to stop it. "Sarah, listen to me," I said firmly, causing her to sit down. "Burning your mark won’t protect you from whatever took theirs." "Then nothing will!" she sobbed. "Tom and I have been mates for five years. We have two pups together. But what if tomorrow I wake up and feel nothing for him? What if he looks at me like Caleb looks at Lily - like I’m a stranger?" I’d been alive for seventy years, and I’d never seen the pack in such chaos. Ever since Lily and Caleb returned with their broken bond, fear had poisoned every relationship in Silver Peak. Mates questioned each other constantly. Parents worried about their children’s fate. Young wolves were afraid to even look for their fated partners. "The Moon Goddess wouldn’t let that happen to everyone," I tried to comfort her, though doubt gnawed at my own heart. "How do you know?" Sarah demanded. "You’ve never had a mate. You don’t understand what it’s like to love someone so much that losing them would destroy you." Her words stung because they were partly true. I’d never experienced the mate bond myself. But I’d watched it crumble other wolves when it was lost, and I’d seen what its loss was doing to our pack now. After treating Sarah’s burn and sending her home with strong orders to talk to her mate instead of hurting herself, I walked through the pack grounds. What I saw made my stomach twist with worry. Marcus and Elena Silver, who’d been friends for twenty-five years, barely looked at each other during the evening meal. When I asked Elena about it, she whispered, "What if Marcus stops loving me like Caleb stopped loving Lily? What if one day he wakes up and I mean nothing to him?" At the nursery, Jenny refused to let her mate David help with their baby daughter. "I can’t depend on him," she explained when I questioned her. "If his love disappears, I need to be ready to raise her alone." Even the unmarked wolves were impacted. Young adults who should have been excited about meeting their mates now spoke of staying single forever. "Why risk it?" one eighteen-year-old asked me. "Why open your heart to someone if they might forget they ever cared about you?" The pack was pulling itself apart from the inside, and I didn’t know how to fix it. That evening, I climbed the steep path to the Moon Pool, hoping for direction. The sacred water mirrored the stars, but gave me no answers. I’d prayed to the Moon Goddess every night since Lily and Caleb’s return, asking for understanding, but the silence felt heavier each time. "Elder Iris?" a small voice called out. I turned to see Luna coming, but she looked nothing like the confident girl who’d once believed she’d become the next pack Luna. Her face was pale and drawn, her eyes red from crying. "Luna, child, what’s wrong?" "It’s my parents," she said, sitting beside me on the stone bench. "They’ve been mates for twenty years, but now they’re fighting constantly. Dad keeps blaming Mom of not really loving him. Mom keeps trying Dad by asking if he’d still want her if her mark disappeared." I sighed loudly. Beta James and his mate had always been solid as rock. If their relationship was breaking, the damage was worse than I’d feared. "They sent me away tonight because they needed to ’talk,’" Luna continued. "But I could hear them yelling at each other from my room. Dad said maybe they should split before their bond gets destroyed like Lily and Caleb’s. Mom said maybe that would be easier than waiting for the other shoe to drop." "I’m sorry, dear one," I said, putting my arm around her shoulders. "This is affecting everyone." "Elder Iris," Luna said quietly, "do you think it’s my fault?" "What do you mean?" "I was so jealous of Lily when she got the Triple Moon Mark. I wanted the children to choose me instead of her. I even helped those rogues try to hurt her." Tears rolled down her face. "What if my jealousy somehow cursed their bond? What if the Moon Goddess broke their love to punish me?" "Oh, child," I said, pulling her closer. "Whatever happened to Lily and Caleb wasn’t caused by your feelings. Magic that powerful comes from much darker places." "Then what did cause it?" Luna asked. "And how do we fix it?" That was the question keeping me awake every night. In all my years studying pack history and ancient magic, I’d never heard of a mate bond being totally severed. Damaged, yes. Strained by distance or betrayal, sure. But erased entirely? It should have been impossible. "I don’t know," I admitted. "But I’m going to find out." Luna wiped her eyes. "Can I help? I know I made mistakes before, but I want to make things right. I want to help save Lily and Caleb’s bond, and maybe save my parents’ marriage too." Looking at this girl who’d grown so much from the spoiled child she’d once been, I felt the first spark of hope I’d had in weeks. "Yes," I said. "I think you can help very much." We started walking back toward the pack grounds, but halfway down the road, Luna grabbed my arm. "Elder Iris, do you hear that?" I stopped and listened. At first, I heard nothing but normal night sounds. Then it reached my ears - a low humming that seemed to come from the earth itself. "The Moon Pool," I whispered. We rushed back to the holy pool, and what we saw made my blood freeze. The water was glowing with silver light, but not the gentle radiance I’d seen during events. This light pulsed like a heartbeat, getting brighter and more urgent with each flash. "What does it mean?" Luna asked, backing away from the pool. Before I could answer, pictures began forming in the glowing water. I saw Lily surrounded by three other girls, all with Triple Moon Marks on their wrists. I saw a woman in dark clothes standing behind them, her eyes glowing red. I saw shadow things circling them like hungry wolves. But the most terrifying picture was the last one - all four girls raising their hands toward a dark moon, their marks blazing with power that felt wrong, corrupted. "The Gathering," I breathed, finally understanding. "Someone’s using the Triple Moon Bearers to perform the Great Gathering ritual." "What’s that?" Luna asked. "A ceremony that could either save the world or destroy it completely," I said, my voice shaking. "And if those images are true, it’s happening tonight." The pool’s light suddenly flared so bright we had to shield our eyes. When it faded, the water showed one final picture that made my heart stop. Caleb, Aiden, and Brock, along with dozens of other wolves, all lying unmoving on the ground. Their eyes were open but empty, staring at nothing. "Are they...?" Luna couldn’t finish the question. "I don’t know," I said, but deep in my bones, I feared they were witnessing what would happen if the ritual worked. "Luna, we need to warn the pack. Now." We ran down the mountain as fast as my old legs could take me, but when we reached the pack grounds, something was wrong. The normal evening sounds were gone. No conversations, no children playing, no wolves going about their business. The silence was complete and total. "Where is everyone?" Luna whispered. That’s when I saw them. Every wolf in Silver Peak stood completely still in the main clearing, their eyes reflecting silver light. They weren’t moving, weren’t talking, weren’t even breathing regularly. "Elder Iris," Luna said, her voice filled with fear. "What’s happening to them?" I approached the nearest dog - Beta James, Luna’s father. When I waved my hand in front of his face, he didn’t respond at all. His eyes stared straight ahead, seeing nothing. "The ritual," I realized with rising horror. "It’s already started. The Great Gathering is pulling power from every mate bond in every pack." "Can we stop it?" Luna asked. I looked around at the frozen wolves, then up at the sky where storm clouds were forming despite the clear weather moments before. "I don’t know," I admitted. "But we have to try. Because if we don’t, every wolf in the world is going to end up just like this." Thunder rumbled overhead, though no lightning flashed. In the distance, I could hear something that made my soul chill - the sound of hundreds of people chanting in a language older than memory. The Great Gathering had started, and we might already be too late to stop it.

Chapter 72: The Ripple Effect

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